Of days of yore and present

This is the city's cesspool, nerve centre and bazaar rolled into one. Gandhi Market sits like a veritable pot of honey, buzzing with flies, right in the heart of the city. The next time you navigate your way through one of the biggest and oldest markets in the State, you can summon up images of women armed with shopping baskets, men pulling carts and officers striding about in the times of the British Raj. For, besides the rot and refuse that meets your eye, there is 140 years of history hidden here.

An oil canvas by Philip Le Couteur titled, ‘The Marketplace of Trichinopoly' shows officers of the Madras Light Infantry in the market area in the backdrop of the Rock Fort. Today though, the market abounds with garbage, slush and straying cattle.

A principal marketplace, the Gandhi Market attracts retailers from across the Central region. The market complex houses separate spaces for the English vegetable market, fish market and vengaya mandi, plaintain mandi and coconut market.

Known as the Fort Market or ‘maiam sandai', construction of the market began in 1867 and lasted till 1868 ‘on a portion of the reclaimed moat, to the South of the fort'. According to Lewis Moore's gazetteer, ‘the great Trichinopoly market' was the second most important new works carried out by the Municipality. Subsequent repairs and extensions were made and total expenditure tallied Rs.20,000.

We read that the market was expanded almost to double its original size with improvements effected after 1874 that cost around Rs.2,807 . The extended portion was, however, used as grain market and was the resort of small time vendors. The average income from the market before extensions is recorded at Rs.4,000. But with establishment of butcher stalls, the income is said to have increased substantially. In due course, the clock tower was installed in front of the fort market.

F.R. Hemingway in the Trichinopoly gazetteer, records there were seven other markets in the town, towards the close of the 19th Century, though these were constructed at less than one fourth of the cost of the Fort market. The Uraiyur and Chinnakadi markets that sprung up in 1872 and 1883 respectively get special mention. Notably, by 1904 there were five municipal slaughter houses in addition to the seven markets.

The Mahatma’s way

The market was expanded in 1927 under the mayorship of P.Ratnavelu Thevar. In an act of defiance, Thevar renamed the market after the Mahatma and is said to have invited Gandhi to lay the foundation stone for the expansion work. A statue of the ‘father of the nation' stands tall at the market today.

The magnitude of business and trade of perishable items may leave anyone overwhelmed. The market is bursting at its seams with the wholesale market and retail traders functioning side by side and town buses winding their way through narrow roads filled with encroachments and arterial roads clogged with vehicles.

The proposal of moving the market to Ariyamangalam mooted over a decade ago is yet to materialise.